Pig Perfect
In this memoirish account of pork production and consumption, the self-described “hamthropologist” Peter Kaminsky searches for the perfect swine. Cherishing memories of his grandma’s boiled ham, Kaminsky travels extensively, from the foothills of the Pyrenees to rural Missouri. He examines pigs from historical, religious, and ecological viewpoints, veering into impassioned, if rudimentary, discussions of their role in everything from sustainable agriculture to evolution. The characters he encounters along the way, among them a dark-haired Kentucky beauty who holds the secret to pork mold and a champion pig-cutter from Spain, are the book’s heroes. Kaminsky writes with the authority of an obsessive and a humor that occasionally strays into winsomeness; in his acknowledgments, he thanks “all the pigs who gave their last full measure in the service of gastronomy.”
Source: The New Yorker
Additional review: https://www.newsomscountryham.com/pigperfect.html
Bio: Peter Kamisky
A journalist, author of books on chefs from the United States, producer of television programs, columnist for The New York Times and an out-and-out defender of the culinary virtues of the pig. He describes himself as a “hamthropologist”, above all after publication in 2005 of the book Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them, a really encyclopedic treatise on this animal and its products from many countries.
This book is a testimony to Peter Kaminsky’s passion for the Ibérico pig, raised in Spain in the open air and fed with bellotas (acorns) to produce Ibérico ham, one of Spain’s most important contributions to the world’s larder.
Peter Kaminsky is the author of many cookbooks with Daniel Boulud, Michel Richard, Gray Kunz, Sheila Lukins, Fabio Trabochhi and the Argentina master Francis Mallmann. He is the former Underground Gourmet for New York Magazine and a contributor to Food & Wine. His Outdoors Column has appeared in the New York Times for over twenty years. He worked in Barcelona and Madrid as a young man and he as written a number of stories about María José San Román, the celebrated chef Monastrell restaurant in Alicante.
Source: Food and Wines from Spain
Addional information:
Kitchen Careers: Peter Kaminsky, Food Writer
https://www.pbs.org/food/features/kitchen-careers-peter-kaminsky/
Eating Well Without the Flavor of Shame
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/dining/the-author-peter-kaminsky-on-how-to-eat-wisely.html
Anglers Journal: https://www.anglersjournal.com/author/peter-kaminsky
Penguin Random House books; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/47160/peter-kaminsky
